I would try to share what I have learnt
Computer
Mainly Physical Computer techologies
Couple of up-coming technology to look forward / Project Natal and AMD Fusion
May 18th
Microsoft getting a step closer to bridge the gap between virtual world and physical world. The Project Natal is going to change the way we use remote controls. Microsoft has set October dead line for the public release of the much waited project natal.
What is project Natal ?
Its a remote control unit where the user doesn’t have to hold any controller rather his/her/their motions are tracked via a motion scening unit to accept command based on the physical movement of the user.
The one of the very first implementations of the technology is going to be on the gaming platform via Microsoft XBOX 360.
Playing with the mouse – How much has it traveled or how many clicks have you done ?
May 8th
Ever wondered how many kilo meter does your mouse travel in each month inside your tiny computer screen or like how many times in total you have clicked it ? Most people are surprised to see that some time, their mouse pointer travels more than they do in a month’s time span.
Win-o-Meter (Freeware)
This small utility measures your computer activity.
It counts the keyboard / mouse presses and computes trajectory that you have arrived by your mouse.
You can easily set it up to be automatically loaded on startup if you would like to have captured all your activity.
Every day is saved into history, so you can make statistics of your activity (averaging..).
You can also export your whole history to a CSV file (comma separated values) which may be used later in e.g MS Excel. You can do it using the right click menu or directly from the command line (e.g. winometer.exe /exporthistory history.csv)
Download -> http://www.tjelinek.com/main.php?section=w
OdoPlus (Freeware)
OdoPlus tracks the distance your mouse pointer travels on the screen. It also keeps record of how often you clicked each mouse button and in which part of the desktop.
- Tracks overall and intermediate distance
- Click counts for left, right, center buttons
- Now supports wheel mice!
- Graphical click distribution view
- Only needs about 500K of your RAM
- It’s Freeware
Download -> http://www.fridgesoft.de/odoplus.php
Microsoft it self doesn’t care about IE6 ?
May 7th
Browser compatibility is a big issue for them who are in web development related tread. Now days cross platform compatibility test and tweak takes more time than actual development process.
There are number of browsers in the market and those who work with CSS and style coding know how hard it becomes to make a website compatible with every browser.
Although Microsoft has stopped supporting IE6, but still a large number of web users, almost 20% to be exact, is still using IE6 hence for a web publisher, IE6 compatibility does matter a lot. Infact, Microsoft it self has bundled IE6 as in terms of Windows XP mode in its latest OS Windows 7, emphasizing on the ability to test web applications directly from present OS.
Recently, when I was trying to implement a new theme, I faced lot of issue while making it compatible with IE6. While I was spending few sleepless nights around it, I wanted to see how Microsoft’s own websites look in IE6. I didn’t had to look much, as links mentioned in Microsoft home page turned out to be IE6 incompatible.
Take a look at Microsoft Office 2010 Beta page in IE6. Which seems to be broken up while opened under IE6 browser.
There should be an universal layout standard to make the code work in all browser and web platform. And as for Microsoft, it seems, they them self aren’t interested in welcoming 20% of Internet users.
Google Chrome 5 is now in public beta
May 5th
Google Chrome team have released their latest browser to the public beta. You may get / download Google Chrome 5 beta via below mentioned beta channels,
Windows: http://www.google.com/chrome/eula.html?extra=betachannel
Mac: http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=mac
Linux: http://www.google.com/chrome?platform=linux
They have also released a video on how they / Google chrome team does speed testing of their product. Take a look as how your browser works faster than bullet.
Second hand games to be sold in US
Apr 20th
Game Trading Technologies, Inc. partnering with 7-Eleven, Inc, a US based retail store operator has launched a program called “Great Games Below $20“. Under this program, 7-Eleven plans to list various gaming titles (all re-slod games) on all gaming (hardware) platform under their 3000 store location across the US.
Re-sold software can be a good option to counter piracy in countries like India , China and other emerging market. Price is a major concern hence it drives more and more users towards pirated products.
We have already seen if the price of a software is affordable and affordable in means of buying power of local users, they do tends to prefer Original over the counterfeit.
Kaspersky Internet Security 3 user pack is available under Rs. 550/-, that’s USD 12. Meaning a PC can have Full year of anti virus protection at a cost of USD 4. Which in terms is cheaper than a pirated software.
So is Kaspersky losing out big by selling their product at 10-12 times lower price than usual ? I don’t think so, as I have observed, although the OS and most of the software is pirated, but user insist on having genuine Kaspersky product.
I can only hope, not only Kaspersky, but all other software vendors would learn about the fact and can start selling their product at such rate that an user wont even think of buying counterfeit !!!
Windows Mobile 7 or rather the ZUNE phone is finaly here
Feb 16th
Finlay after a long delay and a super secrete development process, Microsoft is launching their next version of Windows mobile.
The Windows Mobile 7 series, which is suppose to change the way smart phones worked. Check out the launching video to get a more inside look at the upcoming device.
- Microsoft Unveils Windows Phone 7 Series – Watch the launch press conference video
- Discover the new features of this new slick device – Windows Mobile 7 website
- Behind the scene – Development of Windows Mobile 7
- Windows Phone channel on You Tube / Facebook / Twitter
Things what we get to know from this early videos and projections are like,
- Every Windows Mobile 7 series phone would be a ZUNE HD also, hence expect them to be Hard disc based.
- Windows mobile 7 heavily concentrates on cloud hence just like iPhone, expect it to be bandwidth hungry.
- Full touch screen (HD) with multi-touch feature
- Microsoft is concentrating to integrate more and more 3rd party cloud services with Windows Mobile 7 than any other manufacturer have done previously
Loading ...Download all the Official Windows 7 Themes from a single location
Dec 16th
It was Windows 95, where we first had the option to switch themes to enjoy a new desktop everyday. Back in those days it helped to refresh the old computers with new themes but some how with Win2k and onwards, themes went missing as the OS started come with just 2 option, one graphics hungry and another light version.
But with Windows 7, Microsoft has brought the concept of themes back to mainstream. The default installation of Windows 7 would carry couple of themes with it, where as one may find a bunch of themes based on many concept at Windows 7 Personalization Gallery hosted by Microsoft.
More >
Quick look at TATA Photon TV -> Wireless television streaming / broadcasting via TATA Photon+
Dec 12th
TATA indicom becomes the first Indian ISP to offer live television streaming via its EVDO / HSIA wireless network. Recently TATAindicom has tied up with Apalya Technologies, a Hyderabad based company to launch the Photon TV service on Adobe Air platform.
TATAindicom is presently providing the CDMA 1x service in 22 states and has a large EDVO / HSIA network on most of the big cities.
How to get Photon TV
You may start the service by downloading the TV viewing tool. Which is around 17MB and available for free download.
Do take a note here, the Adobe Air run time given with this tool seems to be out dated as right after the installation, my adobe update center informed me that there is an updated version of Adobe Air run time available. Meaning another 10+MB of download.
Presently the application supports only Windows platform and I have tested and found it working with XP (x64) / Vista (x64) and Win 7 (x64).
The Application interface / How to use TATA Photon TV
How to install / How to create a bootable installation USB / flash drive of Windows 7
Dec 11th
Netbook computers are fast becoming mainstream products. To cut weight of the portable devices, its now becoming a common practice by vendors to ship portable computers (Laptop / Notebooks) with smaller screen and without any optical (CD / DVD) drive.
Ever since we have stepped in to the broadband edge, people are finding it easy to stream or download (purchase) movies / music / software online rather than buying physical copy of it. Hence lack of an optical drive is not causing any major issue for day to day computing.
List of Mounting / Virtual (CD/DVD) drive software supporting Windows 7
Dec 8th
Daemon Tools (Free / Paid)
Daemon tools is one of the oldest and widely used software in this category. There are 2 versions of this product available, as both free and paid-ware. Supports Windows XP / Vista / 7 (x64/x86).
Since the time they have started to sell a paid copy of the product, the free version has started to pack some bloatware like browser tool bars and certain add-ons. However you would be presented with options under custom installation to install the software without these add-ons. Where as the paid versions allows you to create 32 virtual drives supporting Blue-Ray also.
How high can you go – Intel demonstrates a processor with 48 cores
Dec 3rd
Intel is working hard to push their terascale computer platform research to new limits. Recently Intel researchers demonstrated an experimental single die multi core platform, which allows them to run 48 cores under a single processor.
Use Windows Installer CleanUp Utility to fix Faulty / bad / corrupt installation of any software
Dec 1st
Some time due to many reasons, installation of a software may go wrong and the left over can cause trouble for your Windows. Many software vendors provide cleanup utility for their specific software, where as many doesn’t.
Do you have a genuine Windows ?
Dec 1st
Here is a Microsoft video, explaining users about Piracy and certain ways to determine genuine product along with the benefits of a genuine product.
Microsoft also lists samples of counterfeit or pirated products. List of such can be seen given in their Counterfeit Gallery.
Loading ...
Recent Comments